Mayor Susan Fennell came out swinging at a Brampton council meeting Wednesday, announcing that “the gloves are off’ after being “smeared” by reports about her profligate spending.

She offered no apology for her lavish spending on the taxpayer’s dollar, but did try to explain away some of the expenses.

“There is no scandal in Brampton,” she repeated three times, her voice rising in front of a near-full house in the council chambers, claiming there was a concerted effort by councillors and the Star “to create a smear campaign of the name of our city, Brampton, all in the goal of actually smearing my name.”

Recent reports, based on documents obtained by the Star, have revealed she and her staff and charged $622,000 on their city-issued credit cards since 2007.

Fennell addressed councillors’ questions about the 260 transactions totalling $16,000 made on her credit card at gas stations — including multiple charges on single days, and up to three charges in a week. In response to councillors’ demands for an explanation, she blamed this on “billing process issues,” the same explanation she gave to the Star for gas-station transactions that appear to have been made in Brampton on the same day as transactions made in Florida.

“What does that mean?” asked Councillor John Sprovieri, after Fennell repeated her response.

“What it doesn’t mean is there is monkey business going on,” she replied.

She said her staff are trying to “cross-reference” the charges and said the multiple charges could be because of the way “a gas company does their billing.”

Resident Peter Bailey began the questioning of Fennell, greeting her with a salutation in Mandarin. “That’s a little bit of Mandarin,” he said. “I was recently in China.”

Before flying first-class to China in 2012, Fennell charged taxpayers more than $1,300 for Mandarin lessons and $531 for a one-night downtown Toronto hotel stay while she took the lesson.

Bailey said he’d learned some Mandarin on YouTube, adding: “It’s free; didn’t cost taxpayers any money. Maybe you can do that on YouTube next time.”

Councillors then grilled Fennell over numerous expenses she charged to the city, including $700-a-night hotel stays; lavish dinners costing over $1,000 at high-end restaurants; pricey airfare (including $1,850 to Ottawa); at least $16,000 in personal charges by her and her staff; $25,000 in charges to city-issued credit cards for Fennell’s private gala; thousands of dollars contributed to golf tournaments that she previously criticized other councillors for participating in, while claiming she didn’t golf; and Highway 407 tolls that councillors said she recently denied charging to the city.

Fennell stated that, “I may not have the answers today.”

But then she offered the following explanations:

She said her budgets and all her spending was approved by council.

(Councillors said they approved travel for conferences, but never knew she was flying first-class and staying at $700-a-night hotels).

She said the $1,850 flight to Ottawa was not first class and that previously purchased flight pass credits were used because otherwise they would have expired.

(She flew to numerous destinations in Canada for the same price, including to Saskatoon and Bagotville, Que.).

She said she did not pick the hotels where various conferences were held or her $5,600 stay at the InterContinental in London, England, claiming that councillors stayed at the same hotels when they went to conferences.

“No, we didn’t,” Sprovieri replied. (Fennell did not explain her $4,400 airfare to London — her chief of staff flew for $895.)

She said the Brampton Guardian “was wrong” to report that she had no 407 toll charges this term.

(Fennell had almost $1,000 in charges in 2012 alone, but didn’t correct the newspaper’s reporting at the time, while councillors were recently criticized for expensing as little as $50 a year on 407 tolls.)

She said expensive dinners in Brampton, across Canada and in Florida were to court business opportunities.

She did not address many of the questions asked, including queries about charges made to city credit cards on behalf of her private gala, as well as charges of a personal nature. She said she would need to look at the documents carefully to answer questions involving specific charges on specific dates.

Fennell also stated that because of “biased” reporting, she will no longer be responding to the Toronto Star. Her supporters in the crowd handed out “Brampton proud no Toronto Star” T-shirts.

Fennell’s popularity has taken a nosedive since her spending became a public issue. A Forum Research poll taken at the end of March found only 29 per cent of respondents approved of the job she’s doing, while 71 per cent disapproved. In two-way and three-way races against her major rivals for the mayor’s job, she was beaten easily in each scenario.

“You can fool some of the people some of the time,” Sprovieri said after Fennell finished her lengthy, tangential explanations. “But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Sprovieri and other councillors said they hope Fennell has real “evidence and proof” for all of her spending, ahead of an upcoming forensic audit of the mayor’s expenses, pushed by Councillor John Sanderson, which will include all of council.

John Corbett, the city’s chief administrative officer, suggested to councillors that they hold many of their questions for the audit, which will be completed by July.